Summer Baby
by silver-grey-monkey
Summary: Anouk has grown old and reminisces about better times. *Oneshot*


Hi there! This is my first real fanfiction type story that I've written.

I worte it as a year 9 english assignment. It is supposed to be a monologue, but I think it turned out more like a narrative. I got 15/15, so I must be doing something right, though!

Enjoy...

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**Summer Baby **

(A sullen-faced woman cast amongst shadows peers out of a window, centre stage, in a dank and dusty room. The only light in the room is from the full moon shining in from the night sky. She turns to an old table and begins to write on an old, yellowing piece of paper, furiously).

I used to love you.

I used to think you were all I ever needed to be happy. Oh, how wrong I was.

Never, have I seen something change so much in such a short period of time. When I was I child at school I was always thought to be different, an outcast. I never fitted in with any of the stereotypical groups people form themselves into when they are in a school environment. I would always pretend to like the latest songs by the most popular artist the 'cool' girls liked. I'd wear the right clothes, watch the right movies, and laugh at their dim-witted jokes. In secret I was something nobody could ever understand. Not even my mother understood me anymore. We used to be so close. I was her summer baby. Her Anouchka. Little Anouk.

(The woman's expression changes slightly, softening with a small smile).

I remember a long time ago, when I was at the tender age of six, my mother and I had travelled a lot by then, but we came across this small village called _Lansquenet_**-**_sous_**-**_Tannes_ with pastel painted exteriors with tulips bursting with colours; brilliant oranges and yellows and vibrant indigoes and crimsons, sitting neatly under every window sill, and interiors with small wood burning ovens and cosy bedrooms with over-stuffed duvets, but never as much colour and life as you would think they would have inside, but still lovely to look at. Every little home held their own stories, their own secrets.

It wasn't a very populated town, but just enough people to create the type of place where they would have annual town meetings with the mayor and Comte de Reynauld, who ran the church, where every citizen would attend each Sunday for morning mass, only ever missing if they were ill, and sometimes not even then.

This was unusual for my Maman. She never went to church, never owned a bible. Her bible was her chocolate recipes and the books of the tarot readings and practical magic; using enticing flavours, like special herbs and spices, adding great sense of fun and fulfillment to everything she did, without the need to follow a God or a religion. She was so carefree, just like me.

When we arrived in Lansquenet, the people didn't take too kindly to us at first, especially to my Maman. Some would even refer to her as a witch, because we were the only people who didn't attend church and Maman never wore black shoes like the other mothers. I don't think she has ever worn anything black in her life, well, except for when she was covered in the darkest and richest couverture chocolate after spending hours working, or more like playing in the back kitchen of our Chocolaterie, we had opened up, thinking it was perfect timing, with only two months to Easter.

Maman painted and decorated it with little finishing touches by me, like a red hand print on a stool, and a paw print by my imaginary friend, Pantuofle, the kangaroo, back then I was more than one hundred percent sure that everybody could see him. She worked on it for three days straight until she had it just how she wanted. It was a beautiful shop, the best chocolaterie we had owned, and we had owned quite a few before then. It was a masterpiece. Painted with different shades of blues. Baby blue on the walls and on the floors, midnight blue mixed with brown swirls, just like Maman's famous Mendiants she would make with icing made from real blueberries I would pick down by the Tannes River, with Pantoufle by my side each Sunday, while everybody else was at Mass.

Nobody came to our shop after a single visit by The Comte. Apparently we had arrived just in the midst of lent, where people wouldn't eat very much for sometime. He had declared our shop forbidden and that we won't last long here. I never understood it, but Maman did, even though she thought it to be a bit of nonsense. He said he didn't agree with our shop and the fact that my mother wasn't married and I had no father. It's not that I didn't have a father, of course I did, it's just we never knew who he was.

I never thought about having a father. I never really needed one. That was until after three months of living in Lansquenet, our little shop was thriving, much to the Comte's despair. People had began to open their arms to Maman and I, relishing in our little treats, walking by the enticing display window, poking their heads in, just to take a peek, and leaving with bags of their favourites. Maman and I always had a special knack for guessing people favourites. Except for one very interesting character. His name was Roux, and he was glorious. He had honey colour hair, down to his shoulders, always tied back in a neat pony-tail. He lived on a boat with people he called the 'River Rats'.

Maman fell madly in love with him, and so did I, having my first taste at having a Papa.

(The woman's smile drops back to a frown and she sighs as she writes).

It didn't take long until that changed though. The west wind blew and Maman decided it was time to leave again. I never made a fuss when it happened every other time before, but this time was different. Roux made it all different. I never understood why my mother would want to leave if she was in love with Roux. A man who wrote her love songs and played them to her on his guitar and danced with her on his boat by candle light and made me feel as if I had a father I could play tea parties with and have piggy-back rides until the sun went down and who I looked up to so much and wanted to one day meet a man just like him, who I would marry and have summer babies with and live on a boat in the Tannes.

My dreams were shattered, just because Maman couldn't sit still. There would be no more tulips in their neat little boxes, no more blueberry picking with Pantoufle, no more Roux, my ideal Papa, but worst of all it was the end of Maman and her little Anouk, the summer baby. They were still back in Lansquenet, in the chocolaterie, while we left, walking in the storm with our over used suitcases and wearing our red hoods, disguising my tears as we ran away, once again from ever settling our weary hearts.

Ever since that day we ran, I never was the Summer Baby, with her golden hair flying in the breeze as she ran along the river with Pantoufle. He never followed us out of that village I called home. He stayed there with Roux and his broken heart.

I wish I could go back there. It has been far too long, Roux would be an old man now, like Maman is and he has probably long since forgotten about the free soul and her summer baby.

(A single tear slips from the woman's face and lands with a splash on the sheet of paper. She stands and walks of stage).

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Thank you very much for reading!

If anybody is wondering the brackets are used because you have to imagine Old Anouk is on a stage, portrayed by an actor.

Comments are yum!


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